The Bookkeeper
by HonoraryNoodleSniper
Summary: A series of one-shots revolving around my OC Time Lord and her apprentice. The Wordsmith has been cut off from Gallifrey for six hundred years following a dangerous political scandal. Since then, she has taken up a life as an author and bookkeeper in a London neighborhood, with an aspiring student to assist her. Stories may not be fully explained, so review if you're curious!
1. Chapter 1

It seemed that the gray days were always the empty ones. A bit ironic, considering that this was a bookshop - the place was built for cloudy days like this. The windows were big enough to let in a good bit of overcast light, perfect for reading. There were comfortable leather chairs scattered aimlessly throughout the aisles, and there was usually something playing softly in the background. This time it was Adele, though the Wordsmith's tastes varied and the shop's playlist was never predictable.

Perhaps it was the bookkeeper herself who kept people away on gray days. It would have made sense, because on days like this, she remembered.

At present, she sat back with her feet kicked up on the front desk, a half-finished bowl of melting ice cream at her elbow and a large, leatherbound book open on her lap. A similar one sat propped against the cash register, its pages spread wide to reveal a maze of intricate circles and lines. Her pale eyes flashed between the two as she wrote in English on the blank pages of the leatherbound book. The convenient thing about empty days was that she could retreat to this desk and pull out her private work. She had brought the book out from the depths of her library in the TARDIS and was steadily translating it into English. It prodded at some sore memories, but at least it gave her a task to focus on.

Still, the typical distant hum of the TARDIS through the back door seemed muffled today, and she felt oddly unsettled with the aloneness.

It must be one of those days. Over the years it had become little trouble for her to set aside things past and immerse herself in the present, as much as a historian could - though there was always that little shadow of solemnity clinging to the back of her mind - and, on a general basis, she enjoyed her lot in life. But not today.

Today, the sound of footsteps walking through the door, though a distraction from her work, would have been more than welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

The bookshop felt so small at night, once the bone-chill was in the air and the street was devoid of people. Small and quiet and covered in the dust of memories a thousand years thick. The Wordsmith patrolled the aisles at a snail's pace, running a scarred hand across rows and rows of books. Books with spines bound in leather and sometimes dull metal. Her tennis-shoed feet made a muffled pad against the flat gray carpet. It almost seemed that dust rose at the disturbance of her feet, though the floor had been vacuumed last night - so complete was the silence, and the aloneness.

She was always drawn to this section at night - the one that held the old Gallifreyan literature, translated into English and Latin and various other languages which she had dabbled in with some interest. The spines showed traces of faint circular designs in gold; impressionistic shadows of the actual Gallifreyan language. It was a secret, of course, where the literature actually came from. Each cover showed a worn pen name, the last remaining ghosts of great writers who had never existed.

A world-weary sigh passed her lips. The literature always comforted her. Sometimes, on nights like this...when her memories grew too old and packed, and they pained her mind, she would slide one of these books from the shelf, take them to one of the leather chairs in the front of the shop, and read. She wouldn't close up shop, though the door was locked. The books themselves felt so worn, the pages so well-loved, as they sat splayed across her lap. And she knew them so well by now. The touch of them was familiar and comforting, like the constant steady presence of a long-time friend.

She pulled one at whim off the shelf and carried it to the traditional soft leather chair, sitting cross-legged in its cushioning upholstery with the book open before her. Sitting cross-legged was something she hadn't done since her first incarnation. She turned the first pages and sank into the story, like a feather floating on a sweet river current. The novel drove the aloneness from her mind.

This could never be lonely.


	3. Chapter 3

The subterranean hum of the TARDIS was like a background for the workings of her mind, even on mindless days when few customers frequented the shop and the Wordsmith was left with little agenda. Today, though, especially today, the TARDIS thrummed as her thoughts wove against it, doubling in on themselves to create the state of brooding in which she now found herself. The Wordsmith, dressed in a dark blue wet suit, floated by the side of a deep circular pool within the depths of the spacecraft, her chin rested on folded arms at the edge of the water. She gazed at nothing as amber light and dark green shadows shifted across her face, pulsing with the faint throb of the heart of the TARDIS. Her gaze was intense, though, almost angry, as she mulled over her own decision.

Adrian was a good kid. She could see that for herself, however much the teenager pretended gruffness towards her family. Her shining eyes when they had met at the coffee shop and mutually praised Alice Croffman's /Heartsong/ said as much as anything; one needed a sensitive heart to appreciate Croffman's work, let alone adore it to that degree. And she had had a bright, eager energy as she gathered her things and spoke her last words to the writer which the Wordsmith found herself enjoying. An attractive energy like that would be good to have around the shop - she would enjoy having someone intelligent around to talk to, to draw her attention away from the sometimes-moody solitude that graced the shop so often. And people liked seeing a younger face working in a bookshop.

But along with intelligence came curiosity. The Wordsmith felt one of her hearts give a twinge of concern when she thought of the entire small row of Gallifreyan literature in the back of the shop. Though most of them had been translated to English by the Wordsmith herself, they were wild and fantastic tales compared to most of Earth's literature. Earth's literature as a whole was human-based, grounded in planetary affairs, as should be expected for this time period. The Gallifreyan works, though - they were so /alien,/ filled with alien creatures and places, spawned from an ancient, long-dead alien culture. There was almost nothing for a twenty-first century Earth-born human to relate to, and that made the Wordsmith nervous. Adrian, clever as she was, would pick up on something like that.

And she /would/ be drawn to those books eventually, the Wordsmith harbored no doubt. They were just the kind of books the student liked: large, old, leather-bound, with intricate designs in gold filigree scrawled across the bindings. The Wordsmith imagined Adrian's curiosity as she opened one up and discovered the entire worlds hidden in their pages, worlds no author on Earth could have dreamt of.

Allowing Adrian to work at the bookshop would mean letting her closer to the Wordsmith's private personal life. There were so many things Adrian should never know, and the Wordsmith wasn't sure she could risk her finding them out. A suspicious Adrian would be very curious, and very clever. The bookkeeper didn't know how she would answer the questions Adrian might put to her boss.

...Well. She could tell Adrian the truth, but she didn't trust the student that far. Would never have to, hopefully. Time Lords had tended to put human companions in danger just by their presence. She'd heard the stories.

But this was Earth, and any danger she might once have posed from her ancient society had disappeared long ago. And she liked this student's company, enjoyed discussing literature with her over a dark chocolate mocha, and the bookshop needed someone to brighten it up a bit. Though the TARDIS had given her a life by creating the little store, she hadn't made the place particularly inviting. The TARDIS could only manage so much happy, like her pilot. Neither of them had retained much capacity for cheerfulness. And as long as the Wordsmith kept her secrets guarded, the kid would be safe enough.

Adrian was an intelligent and studious girl. She'd make a good shop assistant, and the Wordsmith knew she needed the job.

The author would just have to place a few...boundaries.

The gentle waves of the pool lapped at her back, causing her to rise and fall in the water. She'd been sitting there so long that the skin of her face and forearms had dried. She pushed lightly off from the wall of the pool and drifted on her back, submerged a few inches below the glimmering surface with her eyes closed, face upturned toward the myriad of shifting light and shadow playing above her. She would offer Adrian the job the next time she saw the girl.

And though one of her hearts still retained a doubt or two, she found that the other was that much lighter, now that she was finally taking on an apprentice. A small shop was better run by two.


	4. Chapter 4

It rained a lot on this planet.

The wet smattering sounds of splashing drops fell around the Wordsmith like damp leaves where she stood on a chipped street curb, wrapped in a heavy rain-beaded wool peacoat that probably wouldn't last much longer, shoulders hunched in misery against the deluge. Her gray-blue eyes stared balefully out at the shop wall in front of her. Londoners hurried past in the street behind her, desperate to get out of the rain. Their hurried footsteps sent water sloshing up at her boots. Stuck out in the weather, sopping, she felt like a refugee.

The cherry-red door facing her wouldn't open. She'd tried it twice in the last hour. The TARDIS wouldn't let her back inside.

Whatever was changing on the inside, and something must be changing, it was taking a bloody long time.

The Wordsmith huffed a heavy breath out through her nostrils and turned to face the street. Her mane of hair, with its oaken coloring, had been tamed and darkened by the rain. She looked up at the low-slung gunmetal clouds, aching for the relative warmth of the bookshop.

She didn't know when she'd started calling it the bookshop, but it was more or less that. It had grown into the entrance of the TARDIS as soon as she'd landed here, fourteen years ago, and had accumulated books over time. There was a large oak desk along one wall, and rows of bookshelves covering the rest of the room. One morning she'd gone in to find a new leather chair squashed into a corner. It reminded her of the state of a pleasant dream between sleeping and waking; familiar, but not quite real. There was no front door and no storage room. But she was grateful for the solitude, and spent more and more time living in there.

Only now it had a front door. She'd gone out on a rare walk for inspiration and had returned, driven home by the rain, to find home locked against her arrival. There was a window - that was new - but it was curtained in some flimsy material and she couldn't see through to the interior.

Only once the rain began to let up a little was she finally able to go inside.

And after a long pause in which she stood on the new welcome rug in a dripping puddle, gazing, she smiled a little bit.

Now the room was well and truly a bookshop. The shelves looked new and polished, reaching full to the ceiling as if they'd grown into reality from a dream. The carpet was a thick gray material that absorbed the noise of her feet as she slid off her boots and coat and walked across it, running her hand along the old three-sided desk that now carried drawers and a cash register, plus another small stack of books. The air smelled like old, sweet dust, the kind of dust that came from old, sweet wood carved into hope chests and rocking chairs and stowed away in attics in the summertime. The single large bay window was curtained in soft beige, and a conglomeration of mismatched leather armchairs had grouped themselves around the adjacent coffee table.

It was perfect. But her mind cried out against it.

The TARDIS had been pushing her out, ever so gently. She knew it, she'd known it for years. And now the ship had decided it was done being patient with her hermit-like life, and there was a brand new bookshop, apparently open for business, and in all likelihood perfectly visible to the passersby on the street. She cringed from the thought like a woman who'd been in the dark, blinking in sudden unwanted light.

People. It had been so long, really.

She crossed to the window of her new shop and looked out at the empty street. Perhaps the TARDIS had been kind, to allow her a few hours' adjustment by making the change on such a dark day, when the streets were sleek with water and no one cared to go out and notice the storefronts. Her fingertips drummed irregularly on the windowsill, and the small smile crept at her face again.

...It _was_ perfect, she thought again. It was her perfect bookshop. It felt warm, and smelled old, and looked average and soft and calm. If ever there were a place for a world-weary writer, it was a place like this.

She disappeared through the back door into the TARDIS. Returning minutes later with a steaming mocha in a fat glazed mug, she settled down into the armchair behind the desk and kicked her socked feet up on the edge, staring out calmly at the still-pouring rain.


	5. Chapter 5

_All right. A bit of explation - this is the Wordsmith's and Adrian's first encounter with each other, but it got pretty long, so I'm going to post the last part as a separate chapter. This will be my first two-shot. Hope you guys find it satisfactory, and please leave a review with any comments, questions, critiques or ideas! Thank you so much to the people who have reviewed so far - you guys honor me with your compliments and the awesomeness of your existences. :D_

* * *

Maddie gasped as another shock of cold water splashed up onto the leg of her jeans. "Really, Adrian! Do you _have_ to stomp right through the middle of every big, wet thing we run across?"

"Well, I'm wearing boots. Why not?"

The two girls - one short, pale and athletic, the other tall, brown and wiry - were in the middle of a rather packed London street on a sopping wet day. Rain had been pouring down on Great Britain for hours beforehand, and iron-cast clouds still hung over the city, threatening it with another deluge. And despite the threat, Adrian Marx plowed her way across the street toward the doors of the library, heedless of wind and weather.

"Bloody awful day to be walking about town," Maddie grumbled, tightening the drawstring on her hoodie. It was a Bronx sweater. She'd borrowed it from Adrian a few weeks before and hadn't given it back yet.

"Hey. At least the book signing's inside." From the flippant tone in the American's voice, she couldn't have cared less about what a bloody awful day it was. Maddie sighed and shivered resignedly, following close at Adrian's shoulder as they struck out across the wide cement pavement that lay before the library's grand double-doors.

Inside the building, just beyond the fogged window glass, a slow stream of shadowy people milled back and forth. Among them, with her back to the windowpane, a woman with rolled-back shirtsleeves and a mane of brown hair stood before a small group of the people with a book propped open on her arm. A long gray-and-white quill pen scratched across the page as she signed the book with a satisfied smile and handed it off to them, only to turn to the next pod. This one consisted of three laughing college-aged girls with damp hair and steam rising from their coats. It must be raining hard again.

The raindrops trickling down the long windowpane began to patter faster. The Wordsmith turned to glance outside, noting that the day's heavy clouds had swung low again, and the puddles in the cement splashed as the drops grew bigger and crowds of passersby cleared the street. Across the courtyard she caught sight of two running figures heading for the library: one with her hood tightened around her face, clearly upset, dragging her companion by the arm towards the shelter of the library; and the other, hoodless and in a light jacket, laughing as she was dragged along. As they neared, the Wordsmith could make out her wet, dark hair flying about her face, and the coffee-and-creamer color of her skin.

A brilliant grin flashed across the girl's face just as they disappeared up the steps, and the Wordsmith felt the beginnings of a smile at the expression. She finished her signature in the last girl's book and turned toward her desk in the next room, deliberately drifting closer to the front doors. She wanted to see this girl's reaction.

A wash of warm air swirled around Maddie and Adrian as they passed inside, with a relieved huff from the former. The latter tugged her arm away absently, gazing around at the milling inhabitants of the library. Book-themed chatter rose into the air on a current of rain-dampness. Adrian relished it. Her fingers prickled, already aching to get ahold of the book in question. The excitement in the atmosphere was thick, so thick she could run her fingers through it like heavy satin, because somewhere in this building was a genius. Libraries knew when there were geniuses, Adrian thought. They felt different inside.

She wandered through the clusters of enthused fans, half in a trance. Her friend Maddie was forgotten, off in the crowd somewhere. At the side of the room ran a lengthy white table, covered in neat rows of books - oh, those marvelous books, aligned in groups of sagas and volumes of poetry, those books filled with fire, that ignited in her hands when she opened them. And there, at the end, stacks of the newest addition to the ranks, gleaming in their shining covers of dark violet and gold. The tips of her fingers buzzed at the thought of, _finally_, touching one.

_The genius was somewhere in this room,_ she thought. Her genius, the one genius whose beautiful works had saved Adrian from law school, whether she knew it or not. The author of these books was sitting only a few feet away, behind the thin curtain of bodies shielding her view from the author's desk. But these books called her attention. She traced a hand across them, and the waxy deep-velvet texture of a new book cover ran under her fingers like the surface of a dark pool. It felt like almost nothing, and she shivered in delight.

"I take it you're enjoying the series?" someone's voice inquired curiously behind her. Adrian didn't bother with a glance. Fans didn't need eye contact to share in their fandom.

"Most definitely. ...Is-is it good?" she asked, referring to the new book. There was tight eagerness in her tone, but also hesitance. She hated spoilers.

Over her shoulder, the Wordsmith grinned a wide, easy grin.

"That's a loaded question. If you haven't read it, my lips are sealed."

"Oh, good. I hate spoilers." The girl's hands played over the smooth cover, trailing over the bronzed title, fingering the edge of the binding. Relishing the fact of not yet having opened it.

"You love books, don't you." The question was a statement.

"Yes."

"Well, in that case..."

A tanned, brown hand reached from behind her and swept the book off the top of the stack. Adrian turned around to find the author standing behind her in jeans and a black button-down collar shirt, the book propped open in the crook of her elbow and a quill pen in her hand, scribbling something down in the cover of the volume. Adrian stared.

"There. Fifth installment, free of charge." The Wordsmith's pale eyes glanced up at her, and she grinned.

The girl was speechless.


End file.
